Friday, January 21, 2011

A song lyric, a smoothie, and a book

So, first, I always get chills (and possibly slightly choked up if I'm really in the right mood) when I hear (i.e., sing along with at the top of my lungs) a certain line in a certain song:

"Day 18, 253: well honey, that's fifty years - yeah, here's to you and me!"

Anyone know what song that is?  Probably not because my friends don't listen to country, but we'll see if anybody random comes up with the title.  If this was a cool blog there'd be some sort of giveaway to go along with it but I'm just a regular gal with nothin' to give away.  :)

Also, I made myself a smoothie this morning with a scoop of vanilla SlimFast, a cup of milk, 1/2 a cup of ice cubes, a banana and a handful of frozen blueberries and let me tell you: it is good.  Plus it's really pretty.  I have it in a water bottle and every time I take a drink and set it back down again, the lighter frothy part on top swirls in with the darker blue bottom part and it just looks really pretty.  :)  I was going to try to take a picture but I didn't think it would capture it.

Last but not least, I just finished this book a couple days ago:

                                                               (from goodreads.com)

It blew my mind a little bit.  Please read it.  It's so good.  The characters are just so...precious.  And I don't mean that in a cutesy sort of way, I mean that almost immediately I felt like I really loved them.  Like in an honest to goodness, I-love-my-best-friend sort of way, not like where you see a cute purse and squeal, "oh, I LOVE that!"  Reading this book was like wrapping myself up in tea and honey while my grandmother (who for some reason in this little fantasy image of mine is Jamaican) reads to me in the background.  Well, I guess imagining my grandmother as Jamaican isn't that strange because there's a Jamaican character in this book.

It's just such a wonderful, sort of bittersweet, combination of hope and beauty and fear and danger.  And I tell you what, it created a lot more sympathy in me for the plight of refugees. 

Read it.

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Debated about posting this

Hey guys.  So, a bit of a serious entry today.  I heard about this guy on another blog (http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/) and have since found information about him on several websites (it's easy enough if you start with Penelope's link or just Google him) and I ended up reading this letter that he wrote.  It's a suicide letter.  It seems more natural to write "suicide note" but it's definitely not a note.  It's pretty long.
Anyway, he succeeded in killing himself about a week and a half ago, and even if he hadn't this would be a tragic story because of the pain he endured for so long.  I think I'm posting the link to his letter and writing about it because it's a very poignant, insightful look into what depression can be like, as well as possible effects of child abuse.  If anything maybe it will stir more people up into working to help people affected by these awful things, and encourage us all to try to be more alert to what's going on with the people around us.  Of course, being the future counselor that I am, throughout the whole letter I was just wishing I could've helped him, but he's also very clear about his reasons for not seeking more help.

Anyway, it's quite a read and after some deliberation, I think it could be beneficial for people to experience it.  Just be warned about its disturbing content beforehand.  If you are curious about what's in it but are afraid it might be too upsetting for you to read, feel free to ask me about it.

http://documents.from.bz/note.txt

His name was Bill Zeller.  If anything hopefully it will give you an appreciation for how good you have it - assuming you are not going through something similar.  And if you are going through something similar, please don't do what he did.  No matter what he thought, there is help out there.  As you can see from the comments on Penelope Trunk's entry, so many people have gone through similar experiences and have overcome them.

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

All right, chicaaaaaas (or chicos, I suppose)

Another giveaway that I'm trying to get extra entries for!

http://slumberdesigns.blogspot.com/2010/12/700-followers-giveway.html

Feel free not to enter though, because that means a bigger chance for me to win :)

Monday, January 3, 2011

Christmas in Oakland

I'd been commenting to Mark about how people in Oakland seem less interested in Christmas than they were in Halloween.  It seemed to me like I used to see a lot more lights on houses back in Minnesota than I did here.  I was wondering if it had to do with the lack of snow.  Of course I'm sure that doesn't feel like something's missing at Christmas for people who've always lived in this kind of weather.
Then Mark and I discovered 54th Avenue:






And Fleming Avenue:







The pictures aren't the best.  Bear with me, we didn't have the fancy camera with us.
Anyway, I know the Christmas season is over but we actually stumbled across Fleming Ave on New Year's Eve, and I had to share these because these two streets were like hidden avenues of glowing happiness and love.  :)
Good job, guys.  I'm glad you were out there somewhere - I just had to find you.